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What it’s like to work for Stripe

blog.alexmaccaw.com

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Re: What it’s like to work for Stripe

#21

Post by maccman »

mindcrime wrote: post #19

There's a post below, which is [dead], but which raises an issue I was curious about. Is the daily group lunch treated as required, or is it totally OK to skip it? And even if it's not officially required, is there any sort of peer-pressure thing / shunning of people who don't participate? IF it's optional and truly treated that way, it sounds like a great idea to me. Otherwise, I'd consider it downright toxic. At ev…

Yes, agreed. All of these things at Stripe are optional, and more convention than anything else.

Re: What it’s like to work for Stripe

#22

Post by mindcrime »

gdb wrote: post #20
mindcrime wrote: post #19

There's a post below, which is [dead], but which raises an issue I was curious about. Is the daily group lunch treated as required, or is it totally OK to skip it? And even if it's not officially required, is there any sort of peer-pressure thing / shunning of people who don't participate? IF it's optional and truly treated that way, it sounds like a great idea to me. Otherwise, I'd consider it downright toxic. At ev…

Answer: I am currently skipping group lunch :).

Cool. Do most people pretty much do group lunch most days, or is it common for individuals, or small groups, to go off and do their own thing?

Just legitimately curious... not knocking the idea. Like I said, if it's not mandatory, I'm all for it. Just wondering how the culture has evolved around that.

Re: What it’s like to work for Stripe

#23

Post by OmarIsmail »

I love the part about email transparency. That's been my ideal as well, so it's great to see that it actually works in practice.

One big question I have though is around compensation. How transparent are you guys with compensation, and what lessons have you learned there?

Re: What it’s like to work for Stripe

#24

Post by pc »

OmarIsmail wrote: post #23

I love the part about email transparency. That's been my ideal as well, so it's great to see that it actually works in practice. One big question I have though is around compensation. How transparent are you guys with compensation, and what lessons have you learned there?

It's a tough question. We consider compensation to be confidential to both employees and the company -- in general, it's not our information to share.

Within the constraints of that, though, we try to be as open as possible. In particular, we share some information about current salaries at Stripe with new hires, and we share full details about all of Stripe's investment and the terms on which it was taken.

Re: What it’s like to work for Stripe

#26

Post by jt2190 »

jonathanwallace wrote: post #12
scottilee wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's probably some measure of both, but from my experience there are some people you can't afford to give autonomy.

Then you can't afford to keep them around either, right?

The world is not black and white, keep an employee or fire them.

If an employee can perform well with the additional investment of some structure and management, then it might be a cost effective approach.

Re: What it’s like to work for Stripe

#27

Post by swampthing »

Huge fan of Stripe and love the part about email transparency - we have similar practices here as well.

I'm curious to hear if people at Stripe have given thought to just having all emails sucked into a searchable CRM versus having to manually add cc's each time?

Re: What it’s like to work for Stripe

#28

Post by gdb »

mindcrime wrote: post #22
gdb wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Answer: I am currently skipping group lunch :).

Cool. Do most people pretty much do group lunch most days, or is it common for individuals, or small groups, to go off and do their own thing? Just legitimately curious... not knocking the idea. Like I said, if it's not mandatory, I'm all for it. Just wondering how the culture has evolved around that.

I'd say probably 80% of the company is at lunch on any given day. Sometimes people will go and grab food from food trucks or restaurants in the area, though they'll also often bring it back and eat with everyone else.

Re: What it’s like to work for Stripe

#29

Post by alttag »

unohoo wrote: post #18

A lot of these awesome things (weekly standups, together lunches, socials etc.) are feasible when the team is still small. As the team scales, this starts getting more and more difficult and ultimately, silos form among the different functions (sales/support/eng etc.). Probably this might not be felt to such an extent given that stripe is (and will be) engineering heavy (I presume). But I've witnessed this first hand…

I enjoy the occasional social as much as they next guy, but as I get older, my family becomes more important. Is it the case that the majority of employees have fewer external social attachments? Do you (OP, or anyone else here) think the idea of socials, which long term might have a tendency to become de facto mandatory, is sustainable as the workforce ages (and starts families)?
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